


Not-So-Secret Admirer

by SpaceFarm



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Banter, Childhood Friends, F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-29
Updated: 2019-01-29
Packaged: 2019-10-18 16:47:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17584571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpaceFarm/pseuds/SpaceFarm
Summary: “You’re giving me flowers?” she asked, voice wavering somewhere between teasing and something a little too close to genuine gratitude.“No, no. I’m just the delivery boy.” He stepped closer, pressing the crinkled paper into her hands with an infuriating smile. “They’re from some secret admirer of yours—some poor guy that was moping around the festival without you.”





	Not-So-Secret Admirer

**Author's Note:**

> This is some Roy and Riza fluff I wrote ages ago. There's a lot of potential in "not-so-secret admirer" as a Royai phrase so I might be writing more at some point, but for now I just wanted to throw this out here. Hope you enjoy!

Riza’s window was opened every night sometime after sundown, accompanied—inevitably—by a baby-faced boy with wild black hair. 

She  _ would  _ say it was like clockwork, because her and Roy’s nightly conversations were far past being a certainty, but the fact of the matter was that her father wasn’t exactly consistent when it came to releasing his pupil from studying, and that Roy was even less so when it came to the length of his journey (which consisted of sneaking out the back door, climbing up the trellis under her window, and finally pulling himself through the cracked glass window at the foot of her bed). If that was to be compared to any sort of clockwork, it would certainly have to be one sorry excuse for a clock. 

That didn’t, however, make Roy’s knock on her window any less thrilling or his visits any less welcome. It was exactly the opposite. There was  _ something,  _ Riza had come to realize, about sitting on the edge of her bed, mind buzzing and ears itching to hear the telltale rap of knuckles on glass, that made the moment when she slid her window open to let him in all that more rewarding. 

Not that she would tell  _ him  _ that. He was already so smug— _ hello Riza, have you been wearing that goofy smile all night?— _ but besides that, there was no point. It’s not like they could be—they weren’t  _ beaus  _ or  _ lovers  _ or any of those sappy words Roy let fall from his cocky, smiling mouth. They were hardly friends, really, despite these visits; there were more important things to think about, after all—her father’s expectations, her father’s control… well, her father in general. The thought of him finding out about  _ this _ was a thought too unsettling to dwell on.

But there were moments, she found, when she forgot all that. Her mind always caught and stumbled, falling hard, face-first, when she noticed the way Roy couldn’t keep his voice down some nights, in the way he struggled to catch his breath after scrambling,  _ racing _ up the trellis, in the way he flushed every time she smiled at him over their flickering flashlight. 

In the way he held a bouquet of fresh-cut roses clamped between his teeth as he nearly collapsed into her bedroom the night of the summer festival. 

He lurched through the window, eyes glinting and smile evident even behind the mess of tissue paper and leaves. Riza stood back, heart thudding in her chest as he spat the bouquet out into his hands before offering it lazily towards her. 

“It’s for you,” he said under his breath, eyes crinkling. “Sorry about the… er, damage caused in transit. Couldn’t be helped, unfortunately.”

She stared at him, and then the flowers, and them him, taking a second too long at each junction but unable to fully parse the images before her. 

She had been expecting him, of course, but it  _ was  _ the night of the festival, and he shouldn’t really have been back for at least another two hours. Questions swelled in her throat, things like  _ was everything as fun as we’d hoped  _ and  _ what made you come back so early,  _ but the thing her frazzled mind decided on was—

“You’re giving me flowers?” she asked, voice wavering somewhere between teasing and something a little too close to genuine gratitude.

“No, no. I’m just the delivery boy.” He stepped closer, pressing the crinkled paper into her hands with an infuriating smile. “They’re from some secret admirer of yours—some poor guy that was moping around the festival without you.”

Riza’s heart stuttered.  _ Secret admirer _ . 

There wasn’t really anything secret about the way he was grinning at her like she was some sort of dream, or the way his fingers brushed against hers as he released the bouquet into her grip. 

_ Perhaps _ , her thoughts suggested, treacherously hopeful,  _ that’s the point. _

“Oh?” Her hands curled around the flowers, but her eyes found his, mouth tugging up in a smile. “Well, I appreciate the thought, but I certainly hope he didn’t spend  _ all  _ night moping. It’s the summer festival, after all, and I’m sure he doesn’t get days off like this very often.”

It hadn’t taken too long for her mind to resort to banter. Anything to derail that train of thought about secret feelings and lovers and  _ him— _ he had probably just brought this because he was bored, not because he—

She swallowed down a nervous hum and Roy leaned forward, grinning wide and cat-like, as if he had heard her flustered thoughts through a megaphone. 

“Oh, no, I can assure you that he spent  _ every _ second moping. Not to mention all the whining about how unfair it was for your father to keep you home tonight.” 

Riza resisted the urge to take a step back, instead keeping her eyes trained on his. He was  _ too close,  _ with his smile and his dark eyes _.  _ “Oh?” 

“Well…” Roy said, his whisper turning conspiratorial, “Actually, if I’m being honest, I guess he had a  _ little _ fun. I heard that your admirer entered the pie-eating contest—so he could win this bouquet, of course—and some say he transmuted his opponent’s cherry filling into something a little less… tasteful.”

Riza shook her head, only half-forcing the sigh that came with it. “Oh, Roy.”

She could only imagine what that would have been like for whoever he was up against—digging face-first into a pie tin only to find it was filled with some other organic material that absolutely did not belong in someone’s mouth. The worst part was the messy grin she could picture so clearly—a cherry-filled, smirking sort of thing that Roy would cast at whatever poor soul he had just cheated as he stepped up to the podium to claim his prize. 

She had to admit it  _ was  _ a pretty amusing image, and it managed to drive some of the nervous energy out of her shoulders. She pulled the flowers closer, breathing in their scent.

He shrugged, smile widening. “I know, it’s horrible, isn’t it? I consider myself lucky not to be affiliated with people like that. You, on the other hand,  _ you’re _ accepting roses from him. Aren’t you embarrassed?”

“You’re the one who delivered them,” Riza shot back, falling into his rhythm. “How is that possibly any better?”

“Maybe you have a point,” he agreed, nodding wisely, “but a worthy cause justifies the means. I knew the idea of someone else suffering away in loneliness would probably cheer you up, so I agreed to take your admirer’s roses on the condition that I could tell you about how pathetic he was. You always were a bit of a sadist, Miss Riza.”

“A sadist?” She stifled a laugh. “Really?”

“Definitely.” He winked. “Only you could break hearts as mercilessly as you do.”

Riza lifted the roses up to her face, bringing them close to her face, hoping it would help the shadows to hide her grin. She realized, with the odd sort of satisfaction that comes from knowing someone so well, that this whole thing was so distinctly Roy. Only  _ he _ would spend his night thinking of her, leave his outing early, come here to visit her—only to hide a gift and his caring behind a joke and a jibe. 

“I suppose you’re right.”

“About being a sadist? Or a heartbreaker?” Roy moved closer, bending so his nose skimmed the top of the petals, inches from her. 

“About it cheering me up,” Riza said. She moved the flowers, casually twisting them directly into his face, and he reeled backwards, spitting out petals. She straightened, chin rising. “Not that I was that upset to begin with. I’m not much of a festival person, as any  _ real _ admirer of mine would know.”

“No, you’re just an outside person,” Roy said. His words were casual enough, but there was a strand of caring concern in them. He looked away as he began picking leaves from under his collar. “And a fun person. And a not-exactly-happy-about-her-father’s-inflicted-house-arrest person. Take your pick.”

“Hm.” Riza reached over to brush a petal from his shoulder. She  _ had  _ been looking forward to this festival, and she  _ had  _ been frustrated when her father had kept her home under the guise of protectiveness, and she  _ had  _ been disappointed when she realized Roy would be going without her. 

But, she realized, that disappointment had faded away the moment he had climbed back through her window. 

She smiled at him, eyes soft. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were more worried about me than my admirer was.”

“Well, sure. I have it on good authority that your secret admirer is an insensitive idiot most of the time—is there really any point in comparing us?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Riza murmured, leaning in to the flowers again with a serene expression. “It was pretty sweet of him to do this for me.”

He beamed at that, his dark eyes almost glowing in the misty-white moonlight that hung around her room. He was beautiful, like that—his small eyes and wide face brightening like a child’s, his entire expression bursting with his own brand of humor. 

Riza felt the breath leave her lungs.

“I’m glad you like them,” he said, voice growing a little softer, a little more wistful. 

“I love them.” She looked up at him, staring at those moon-brightened eyes. Dark and light and  _ beautiful  _ all at the same time. “And I’ll admit my admirer’s choice of courier was a pleasant surprise as well. You’ll tell him thank you, won’t you?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Roy said, smile turning lopsided. “I think I’ll just keep your thanks for myself.”

“How selfish,” Riza murmured, matching his grin. 

“Only when it comes to you,” he said. 

The words were heavy and light, giddy and sobering, a step further than either of them had ever allowed themselves before. Riza wasn’t sure what to say (what to  _ do,  _ when closing the inches between them was so tempting an option) so she was relieved, grateful, even, when the moment dissolved into conversation—Roy told her about the festival lights and music, about the people he had met and the sights he had seen, about all the things she had missed.

But none of the wonderful images he conjured, Riza found, could compare to the ever-present view of her not-so-secret admirer leaning up against her wall, his hands clasped behind his head, his eyes trained on hers and gleaming with excitement.


End file.
